Missed connection

[paulg]

@notinthe18 154999 wrote:

This is a real problem. There’s an ART facility there and I feel like every time I pass there (esp. around 8 AM) there’s a bus blocking the bike lane. Probably 9 days out of 10 for the last few weeks.

This should stop in a few weeks when they open up the new ART bus facility across the road. (the same project that gave us the new buffered bike lanes). the ART buses have to stop near the ART bus office on the West side of the road to download the data from their day which is why they park there. Not making excuses for them just saying why they do it. I believe when the new facility opens across the road the ART buses will park there and can download their data from there.

Paul

[jrenaut]

If you are going to jaywalk through a starburst intersection at rush hour with headphones in, you might possibly want to LOOK FOR *&@#&^#*#@ TRAFFIC before you walk out literally two seconds before an opposing green light.

[chuxtr]

@Drewdane 154945 wrote:

Even VA “Share the Road” plates with a cycling-oriented vanity message?

Those are the worst!

[secstate]

@jrenaut 155069 wrote:

If you are going to jaywalk through a starburst intersection at rush hour with headphones in, you might possibly want to LOOK FOR *&@#&^#*#@ TRAFFIC before you walk out literally two seconds before an opposing green light.

No.

The trick to aggressive walking is sending a credible signal that you are willing to be run over. There are three approaches to this:

1. The Zombie: Amble straight ahead. If you look up from your phone or otherwise indicate that you’re paying attention, you’ve lost the game;
2. The Demon: Stride through the crosswalk. Pierce each driver with your cold, unblinking gaze;
3. The Nutter: Shout and gesture wildly at your invisible foes as you herd them around the standing traffic. Continue up the median for some ways and gradually to the other side of the road, never less than 50 meters from where you started.

[chuxtr]

@secstate 155143 wrote:

No.

The trick to aggressive walking is sending a credible signal that you are willing to be run over. There are three approaches to this:

1. The Zombie: Amble straight ahead. If you look up from your phone or otherwise indicate that you’re paying attention, you’ve lost the game;
2. The Demon: Stride through the crosswalk. Pierce each driver with your cold, unblinking gaze;
3. The Nutter: Shout and gesture wildly at your invisible foes as you herd them around the standing traffic. Continue up the median for some ways and gradually to the other side of the road, never less than 50 meters from where you started.

A variation of The Nutter is The Panhandler: Walk around in traffic asking for money. Some sort of signage making a bogus emotional plea also helps.

[Vicegrip]

@chuxtr 155169 wrote:

A variation of The Nutter is The Panhandler: Walk around in traffic asking for money. Some sort of signage making a bogus emotional plea also helps.

Tysons now has teams of them. Watched 2 hop out of a late mod very nice truck and deploy while the truck drove to a nearby parking lot. Got one regular that turns his limp off as soon as he is done walking the line. I am all for helping people but no one likes a con. I also don’t like it when this one lady leaves her take out trash at the base of the sigh at the end of the walk line.

[Brett L.]

“Most panhandlers are not homeless, and most homeless are not panhandlers,” Kathy Sibert, CEO of A-SPAN, told the Arlington Connection newspaper earlier this summer.

https://www.arlnow.com/2015/09/18/police-dont-give-to-roadside-panhandlers/

[Harry Meatmotor]

@bobco85 154616 wrote:

I’ll let others reach their own conclusions based on the data presented.

I’m totally drafting that guy if I come across him. #freerider

[ChampionTier]

@elbows 154565 wrote:

2/5 at 3pm
Me: Cycling along 4MR in Barcroft Bog, keeping an eye out for Skunk cabbage.
You: Jogger coming toward me in the left lane.
(Both of us come upon an Asian adult male and female walking slowly and gazing at the woods with a child in the middle holding hands in the left lane, walking towards you in your lane. I slow while I wait to see how you decide to go around them.)
You: Erupt into a profanity laced tirade in the presence of a four-year-old child because they are in the wrong lane, when you can easily pass them in the gravel.
Me: I wasn’t thrilled that they were walking the left lane, but do not think that offense in those circumstances in any way justified your outburst. I sure hope you aren’t also a cyclist. I’m sorry I was too awestruck by your behavior to say anything.

I started cringing halfway through reading this; like watching a movie and knowing something bad’s gonna happen.

[Judd]

@Brett L. 155200 wrote:

“Most panhandlers are not homeless, and most homeless are not panhandlers,” Kathy Sibert, CEO of A-SPAN, told the Arlington Connection newspaper earlier this summer.

https://www.arlnow.com/2015/09/18/police-dont-give-to-roadside-panhandlers/

I used to do outreach services for homeless folks and talked about panhandling with them a lot. One of my favorite guys had the most spectacular panhandling strategy that I have ever seen in my life, although I had to pay him 2 bucks to see it. Nearly all of the cash for the guys I knew who panhandled went to drugs and alcohol. Finding three meals a day for free was never an issue. Most of my guys didn’t panhandle though.

[AFHokie]

@Judd 155265 wrote:

I used to do outreach services for homeless folks and talked about panhandling with them a lot. One of my favorite guys had the most spectacular panhandling strategy that I have ever seen in my life, although I had to pay him 2 bucks to see it. Nearly all of the cash for the guys I knew who panhandled went to drugs and alcohol. Finding three meals a day for free was never an issue. Most of my guys didn’t panhandle though.

Wasn’t there an article within the last year or so about ACPD witnessing a panhandler finish for the day, walk to a relatively new Mercedes and drive off?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930AZ using Tapatalk

[cvcalhoun]

Sunday was my day for (barely!) missed connections. I’m used to slow (and sometimes stopped) walkers. I’m used to small children learning to ride tricycles and bikes with training wheels. I’m used to people wearing headphones so they can’t hear me calling my passes. But this time, I got a new one: A group of about 6 cyclists in a row, going way slower than I was. (I have managed to win the Tortoise prize in Freezing Saddles three years in a row, so I seldom find one cyclist slower than me, much less 6 of them.) I’d try to go around them, carefully calling my pass before I did so. But with that long a line, the chances of their encountering a pedestrian sometime before I’d made it around the whole line of them were excellent. And every time that happened, they would move way into the left lane to pass (without calling their own passes). They showed no recognition at all that I was in the left lane at the time, in spite of my having called out. And they couldn’t just pass slightly to the left (near the middle line)–they had to get so far into the left lane that it was impossible to go around them. It actually took me five tries–and about a mile–before I was able to get around them.

[bobco85]

At the George Mason Dr/W&OD crossing (7 lanes of traffic due to left/right turn lanes) this morning during rush hour
Me: riding west, stopped at the red light
Cyclist A: riding east, stops at the red light across the intersection from me
Cyclist B: riding east behind Cyclist A, stops as well
Cyclist A: seeing a gap in cross traffic, decides to run the red and is successful
Cyclist B: a few seconds later, tries to do what Cyclist A does, except gets caught right around the double yellow lines as cars in the lane behind him and 2 lanes in front of him pass through; he’s in No Cyclist’s Land at this point
Me: thinking, “Oh no, he’s gonna get hit!”
Cyclist B: stops at the double yellow lines, turns towards oncoming traffic, stops 2 lanes of traffic, puts his hand up to thank the drivers, and sheepishly goes back to his side of the crossing to wait for the green light

I see people do this way too often at this intersection, and I’ve seen a couple of near misses like the one today. The cyclists and joggers that run the red here don’t realize how fast drivers are going on George Mason Drive during rush hour (they drive faster to make up for lost time due to congestion), and many think they can easily jet across 7 lanes of traffic when there is a gap.

[creadinger]

@bobco85 155686 wrote:

At the George Mason Dr/W&OD crossing (7 lanes of traffic due to left/right turn lanes) this morning during rush hour
Me: riding west, stopped at the red light
Cyclist A: riding east, stops at the red light across the intersection from me
Cyclist B: riding east behind Cyclist A, stops as well
Cyclist A: seeing a gap in cross traffic, decides to run the red and is successful
Cyclist B: a few seconds later, tries to do what Cyclist A does, except gets caught right around the double yellow lines as cars in the lane behind him and 2 lanes in front of him pass through; he’s in No Cyclist’s Land at this point
Me: thinking, “Oh no, he’s gonna get hit!”
Cyclist B: stops at the double yellow lines, turns towards oncoming traffic, stops 2 lanes of traffic, puts his hand up to thank the drivers, and sheepishly goes back to his side of the crossing to wait for the green light

I see people do this way too often at this intersection, and I’ve seen a couple of near misses like the one today. The cyclists and joggers that run the red here don’t realize how fast drivers are going on George Mason Drive during rush hour (they drive faster to make up for lost time due to congestion), and many think they can easily jet across 7 lanes of traffic when there is a gap.

That’s the same intersection where a couple of years ago I found that the light for George Mason turned green with 3 seconds left on the pedestrian countdown to CROSS George Mason. I think that problem has now been fixed. There’s just way too much going on to try to jump the light there.

[vern]

D-bag on a Cabi headed north on MVT and me south on the same toward the south end of the airport where there are those little curvy parts of the trail that are blind to on-coming traffic. At one of those spots the D-bag misses the curve, heads straight for me in my lane, forcing me off of the trail. Why? Because he was staring at his electronic device, lovingly embracing it with both hands.

I know there are some on here who maintain that they can fiddle with their devices while simultaneously being a PAL. I say bullshit to that.

[Author]

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